And in the real world, kids wouldn't have super powers, nor would they be led by someone whose only powers were acrobatic training and a good brain. DC Comics of the time period that weren't Green Lantern/Green Arrow were selling fantasies, and this was a beautiful one.

Teen Titans #40 (August 1972)




"The Spawn of the Sinister Sea"

Script: Bob Haney
Pencils: Art Saaf
Inks: Nick Cardy
Colors: ?
Letters: Ben Oda

grade: A-


It's the kind of horror story we've been waiting for Haney to tell again. Just as with Teen Titans #34, we begin in the middle of the story, with a moody locale and atmospheric narration:




(never mind the fact that they already met the real Loch Ness monster back in Teen Titans #17, also a Bob Haney story)

and we go on to get images and ideas like these:





Apparently, there's a Scottish folktale even more terrifying than the Loch Ness monster that Haney either found or invented -- in which an island of drowned Satan worshippers rises from the lake once every hundred years -- and Haney tells it well here.

The action is also top-notch. Newcomer to the Titans, Art Saaf creates some truly visually intense moments in this issue, my favorite being Speedy's improvised trick for catching up with a boat they are pursuing that leaves it turning in a perpetual circle:



Nice stuff, there!


Important Details:

- Aqualad reunites with the Titans, initially as their nemesis while enchanted.

- Where's Lilith? She wasn't in last month's Brave and the Bold story either. It sure seemed like Haney was giving her extra attention in recent issues (especially with her own backup story), and now she's gone without even being mentioned? While inter-title continuity is nearly unheard of at this point, perhaps she is taking a leave of absence after the dramatic conclusion to her back-up story in Batman #241-242:



But this is certainly never explained here.

- While Mr. Jupiter manages to avoid being jerk in this issue (though, now that I think about it, the target of his bad behavior was always Lilith...), Haney manages once again to make him come off as a liked but bumbling father figure who pays the airfare and then get the hell out of the way, rather than any kind of contributing member to the team; certainly not someone who commands authority nor seems particularly formidable:





Minor Details:

- I'm starting to think that last issue was originally intended to be Teen Titans #34. So George Tusca leaves the title, and while Murray Boltinoff is scrambling to get a new artist on the title, they run this abandoned story that would have seen the title giving greater attention to Gnarrk instead of veering into the horror genre as a last ditch effort to boost sales. #34 truly feels like where Haney wanted to go with the series once he regained control of it -- continuing to explore his new character, utterly annihilating the likability of Mr. Jupiter, and generally keeping things Haney status quo -- instead of taking an abrupt turn into the zeitgeist horror genre that definitely feels more like something Infantino was pushing (especially with his cover designs, months before we even got an actual horror story in this title).

- As noted previously, the Titans already met the true Loch Ness monster and yet spend the first page of this issue speculating on whether or not it actually exists.

- Why would either the Titans or Mr. Jupiter feel that proving the Loch Ness monster's existence was a worthy use of their time/resources? That's not exactly what they do.



Plot synopsis: The Titans are at Loch Ness, attempting to prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster (though it turns out to be a fake), but they run into a larger problem when they discover the truth of a legend in which an island of Satan worshippers rises from the loch once every hundred years to claim innocent teenagers as their new unnatural minions. Aqualad is thus ensnared, and the Titans scramble to rescue him and flee the island before it sinks again.

Carelessness.

TT #17 was a story from four years earlier, and while I do think Haney cared about these characters more than most people give him credit for, I don't see a lot of evidence that he cared much about the individual stories. This quote from him doesn't help:






* Catron, Michael. "The Comics Journal." Bob Haney Interviewed by Michael Catron Part Four (of Five) «. The Comics Journal, 10 Jan. 2011. Web. 21 July 2016.

Teen Titans #41 (October 1972)



"What Lies in Litchburg Graveyard"

Script: Bob Haney
Pencils: Art Saaf
Inks: Nick Cardy:
Colors: ?
Letters: Jean Izzo

grade: A


One of my favorite Titans covers and stories of all time, and yet I'm not fully buying the creator credits. That cover feels extremely Neal Adams, who so often has his covers slowly tell stories through three distinct areas of focus that your eyes naturally move to in a specific order:

Primary focus: What's startled our heroes?
Secondary focus: Who's that pursuing them?
Tertiary focus: What in the world are they burying??

I've never seen Nick Cardy (the credited artist) attempt something like this before, even with two areas of focus. I'll concede the style of the figures looks Cardy-ish enough, but it might be that Adams was in that session with Infantino and Cardy when they hashed out this cover design.

I bring this up because we've seen Adams step in to assist on the Titans a number of times already and, more importantly, because I can't accept the idea that Haney wrote the story within.

For one thing, Mr. Jupiter's depiction is vastly different in this story. One typically thoughtless, tone-deaf comment aside:



we learn that Jupiter is not exactly the white establishment he might appear to be, having been raised by an escaped slave. We also see him move through this issue with competence for once, as well as meaningfully contribute to the advancement of the plot:



NONE of this is typical in a Haney script.


Secondly, we have to talk about the very scope of this issue. When Bob Kanigher introduced Mal, his race was played up meaningfully. Successor Steve Skeates was likely fired from the Teen Titans for a script that took Mal's race to a whole other level. But (or perhaps because of this) Haney has avoided emphasizing Mal's race like the plague, often relegating Mal himself to the background of each story.

So to be getting a story in which Mal is forced to relive the experiences of an escaped slave, in which race is emphasized on nearly every page with shocking bluntness that feels straight out of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, I get the feeling its Neal Adams ghost assisting. One might recall the last time Adams stepped in to handle a Titans story dealing with race. At the time, DC editorial wasn't ready for such a topic, but Adams has claimed a discussion started then between him and the powers that be which resulted, two years later, in the creation of John Stewart, DC's first black costumed superhero. Well that story was published nine months ago. The powers that be were now clearly more receptive to depicting race and race relations on the comic book page, at least when Adams was schmoozing them. Seems far more likely he's here, pushing the envelope again, than Haney (who has played it super safe with Mal all along) is suddenly trying to push the racial edge here.


ANYWAY, it's a damn amazing story, full of the rich and moody tone that made classics out of "The Demon of Dog Island" (#34), and "The Spawn of the Sinister Sea" (just last issue), only now it's advancing a bold focus on race as well, making this story thoroughly unforgettable.

Sure, there's a lot about this story that doesn't ultimately add up at all, as one might expect of most ghost stories (especially when the Titans are now experiencing them every two months!), but that doesn't take much away from the final impact of this amazing work.



Important Details:

- Okay, so this is now the third story without Lilith in it. What gives? And why is Kid Flash absent too?



We'd speculated previously that Speedy's long absence was due to his drug problem in the pages of Green Lantern / Green Arrow, but he's back now, and I'm starting to wonder if the issue is just that Haney (and maybe Adams here?) doesn't like having to write too many characters at one time. The Titans are now seven members (including Mr. Jupiter), whereas they used to be four. I suppose that's a lot of characters to keep track of in a script, so we seem to constantly have one to two members absent. And leaving Lilith out is a logical choice, as her precognitive powers could easily ruin a story if she knows the solution to a ghostly mystery right from the start.



Plot synopsis: Mr. Jupiter brings the Titans to his childhood home in Litchburg to visit his dying Aunt Hattie, who turns out to be an escaped slave that raised him after his parents died. She gives Mal a voodoo doll just before she dies, warning that he will need it. The ghost of a slave owner and his dogs then begins showing up, pursuing Mal and believing it is Hattie's father. Initially not believing him, the Titans soon see the truth and assist, getting the voodoo doll in time for it to grow ten feet tall and take out the slave owner ghost once and for all.




"Her Brother's Keeper"

Script: Bob Haney
Pencils: Bob Brown
Inks: Dave Cockrum
Colors: ?
Letters: Ray Holloway

grade: C-


Man, have I been waiting for another "Young Lilith" story, but this one really doesn't live up to its predecessors. Lilith meets a wandering, telepathic boy with amnesia who sure seems like he might be her brother, except that he isn't, and her means of unlocking the truth about his past is the most lazy mess of b.s. I think I've ever seen from Haney:



THAT's the solution to this story?

And Bob Brown's art really doesn't help. Compare young Lilith's face in the panel above to how Cardy was drawing her in previous installments:




Brown only comes close to this kind of visual pathos once, in this single panel:



It's a worthy attempt, but then Lilith looks like a baby-doll in every panel that follows.


Plot synopsis: Lilith thinks she finds a long lost telepathic brother, but the telepathy was just caused by blunt trauma and is soon removed with another head injury. Lilith then probes his past by making him believe she has died, revealing that he is not her brother, but also showing her how to return him to his family, which is now understanding and ready to accept him.

#41, was a little bit of a letdown with the backup story -- "Her Brother's Keeper" of which I had a hard time enjoying it; but the main story was extremely good and down in a way that you don't expect it; my memory of this story is not as vivid as #40 and this story is a step below and not as good. I only read this story back then and only twice and that's how bad it was as far as my memory concerns. I only can remember both Mr. Jupiter and Lilith only -- the rest of Titans hardly.


Mr. Jupiter is okay in this story and invited the Titans to his childhood home in Litchburg as you stated and the voodoo and other weird things are happening that I just find it kinda odd for this book.

The cover for #42 is one of my all time favorites. Also liked how WG had a major role in the story. Also as the series progresses, I notice how her costume has some subtle changes. For the most part, the necklace and bracelets are gone. The star pattern has changed from black and white to all white. I thought her costume was prettiest like this, with the white stars that wrap around. Perez's version of the costume was just kind of blah to me...not his fault as in the the late 70s, the artists pretty much seemed to draw the stars with no consistency at all and would just place a random star here and there.

I took Robin's anger as he and the other boys didn't believe WG's and Lilith's story to begin with and now that Kid Flash was hurt, he'd had enough? Also like how WG and Speedy seem to be back on.